I fostered dozens of dogs. In my (admittedly small sample size) set of fosters, a Yellow Lab was the one with the most reactive response towards people and the “pit bull”/bully breed mixes were the most docile with little people in my family. The only “bites” in my family are from two different trained police GSDs.

I agree with other commenters that kids (and even adults who are not well versed in dog behaviors) should not be around strange dogs with unknown histories or behaviors.

I have seen two significant dog-attack-dog events. Neither showed obvious signs or gave noticeable warnings before the attack. Children should not be around dogs with unknown behaviors/ traumas/ conditioning and probably shouldn’t be around dogs when not supervised by a dog-savvy responsible adult. Obviously more time and exposure can lead to increased trust with an individual.

I agree with both the title (which is generally true but unspecific enough to the point of being useless). I also agree that some behavior phenotypes have significant correlation to breeds, while there are almost always counterexamples.

Would you leave a 6 year old unsupervised with a hungry rat? No - what a stupid question. A chihuahua can cause the same degree of injury (life-altering).

Is there a significant difference in behaviour between a pitbull and a chihuahua? No - this study confirms what has been known for years.

Breed-specific legislation is utter bullshit. It clearly doesn't work, isn't workable anyway (breed is judged based on looks rather than genetics), never had any scientific basis, and has been proven to be detrimental to its own aims time & time again.

Interestingly most people misunderstand what a “pit bull” is. There are a few very similar breeds:

  - American Pit Bull Terrier
  - Staffordshire Bull Terrier
  - American Staffordshire Terrier
  - American Bully

[1] https://forbes.com/advisor/homeowners-insurance/banned-dog-b...

Chihuahua: face still attached.

Pitbull: lack of face.

Talking about non-outliers as if they have better knowledge of what the safety hazards are is a fallacy.

Neither - they shouldn't be unsupervised with "random" dogs.

Yes, a bigger, stronger dog has the potential for more damage if it becomes aggressive. Funny you use chihuahua as a counter example, because their reputation is for aggression. A chihuahua is less dangerous because it is smaller not because it is inherently less aggressive.

I believe that was the argument made: presupposing a lack of correlation between breed and behavior, a tiny dog is less dangerous than a large one.